Together with being a simple facet dish and a handy method to save a waterlogged iPhone, rice is now being touted as a standout hair care ingredient. In response to proponents, rice water has the flexibility to make hair shinier, strengthen strands, and encourage hair progress, amongst different alleged advantages. (Even celebs akin to Kim Kardashian and Cardi B. have shouted out rice water as a hair care savior.)
If you happen to’re considering that each one these supposed rice water advantages sound too good to be true, we’re proper there with you. That’s why SELF requested hair care consultants to interrupt down what’s behind the hype—so you may decide if utilizing rice water in your hair is a development price making an attempt. Right here’s what they needed to say.
What’s rice water? | What are the advantages of rice water? | Can rice water enhance hair progress? | Does rice water work for all hair sorts? | The best way to use rice water for hair | The underside line
What’s rice water, precisely?
Rice plus water equals rice water. Sure, it’s that straightforward. Rice water is the nutrient-rich water that’s leftover after rice has been soaked, Rick Wellman, a hairstylist and colour knowledgeable at the Salon Mission in New York Metropolis, tells SELF. Whereas utilizing this liquid as a hair therapy has solely just lately develop into a viral TikTok development, there’s truly nothing new about it.
“Utilizing rice water for hair is a centuries-old Japanese and Chinese language observe,” Jeannette Graf, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in Nice Neck, New York, and assistant scientific professor of dermatology on the Mount Sinai Faculty of Drugs, tells SELF. Rice water has additionally lengthy been used for magnificence and hair therapy in Southeast Asian nations, together with Korea and Thailand.1
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What are some potential rice water advantages?
There’s no denying that rice is nutrient-dense—it’s wealthy in minerals, nutritional vitamins, and antioxidants, says Dr. Graf. That being mentioned, how a lot of that good things leads to the water and the way, precisely, it will probably have an effect on your hair stay to be seen. Whereas there are some research within the works, the science that’s exploring the anecdotal claims continues to be within the early phases, she provides.
Nonetheless, it’s honest to say that rice water seemingly comprises lots of the similar vitamins as entire rice and due to this fact might provide some beauty advantages for hair, probably bettering issues akin to shine, elasticity, and general hair well being, Dr. Graf says. For instance, vitamin B5 (also referred to as panthenol) may also help soften hair, whereas fiber may theoretically coat your strands and make them really feel thicker. Antioxidants, together with ferulic acid, might provide safety from oxidative stress—an imbalance of unstable molecules within the physique that may be attributable to issues like publicity to solar and air pollution—which might contribute to hair graying and breakage.2,3 Rice can be loaded with amino acids (eight to be actual), that are the constructing blocks of protein, together with keratin, the first protein that makes up our hair, says Dr. Graf.4 That’s why rice water has the potential to be a great strengthening therapy too.
Oh, and should you’ve heard that fermented rice water is much more potent than its customary counterpart, know that the proof is generally anecdotal and theoretical there too. Fermentation is a chemical course of throughout which starches or sugars are transformed into an alcohol or acid, by way of enzymes from some kind of microorganism. Fermentation might enhance the quantity of antioxidants in rice water, notes Dr. Graf, however there’s no analysis to assist that this increase will profit your hair.5
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What about utilizing rice water for hair progress?
Right here’s the place issues get somewhat dicey. Simply as all the consultants SELF spoke with agreed on the potential beauty advantages of rice water, additionally they all really helpful taking its supposed hair progress advantages with a grain (pun supposed) of salt. “Rice comprises inositol, also referred to as vitamin B8, and there’s some science indicating that it might assist wholesome hair progress,” says Dr. Graf, including that it’s been proven to deal with alopecia—however solely in mice and when taken orally, fairly than used topically.6 “It’s fairly potential that it might be useful for hair progress, however extra scientific research must be carried out earlier than we might make that bounce,” she says.
